Professional Competence In Counselling

Competence is possessing skill and knowledge that allows us to be successful. It allows us to use prior experience to new situations that will benefit us in different situations. Our competency usually increases over time as we receive more information and ability through asking, observing, and participating. Having competency helps those around us feel more comfortable and secure which can lead us to inspire them to seek knowledge and skill in their own domain. Professional competence can mean various things to different people. Competency in any profession has many different requirements that are learned through sustaining education in order to receive the knowledge and skills necessary to function more appropriately as a professional in

a workplace setting. Being that I want to work in a counseling setting I know that competency in this field is not complacent; there is always new information being taught but it requires a combination of different education, training, experience, and skill. Being competent in one area of counseling does not mean that we are competent in other areas (Callanan, Corey, Corey, 2011).
To me, understanding competence can help an individual become a better person because it gives an understanding of individual strengths and weaknesses and allows you to focus on self-development.

This can also assist in the development of relationships that can influence communication and interaction with groups and individuals. To be able to identify and understand competence in different areas can be a helpful tool in working with different situations. This can definitely increase the potential of becoming an effective worker in the professional field of counselling. The book talks about competence in both the legal and ethical way. From an ethical perspective, competence is required of practitioners if they are to protect and serve (Callanan, Corey, Corey, 2011). From a legal perspective, incompetent practitioners are vulnerable to malpractice suits and can be held legally responsible in a court of law (Callanan, Corey, Corey, 2011). To sustain competence, counselors may need to be both generalist and specialist. A generalist a practitioner who is able to work with a broad range of problems and client populations and specialists are workers who have developed competence in a particular area of practice for an example: career development, addiction counseling, eating disorders, or family therapy (Callanan, Corey, Corey,

2011).
In order to be more versatile in your work you have to maintain competence which allows you to be divergent in your practice. Maintaining competence seems like a lot because it takes time and more practice. You will always have to be a lifelong learner, and find ways to maintain people skills. A way I will maintain competence will be to renew my competence throughout my career through self-evaluation, meeting with different people, and have someone watch over me during practice. I can also expand my knowledge and skill through continuing to educate myself and continue to train and document the things I have been doing. Assessment of competence is important also. I will assess my competence by using formative assessment because I do believe that evaluation will be more beneficial. Even though both approaches are most effective when they integrate, formative gives you a chance to actually receive feedback before you end a program. Formative assessment is a developmentally informed process that provides useful feedback during ones training and throughout one’s professional career (Callanan, Corey, Corey, 2011). This helps establish a practitioner’s understanding of strength and provides useful information to those whose competence is being evaluated. The reason why this is more beneficial is because I believe that getting feedback throughout your development allows you to change the things that need to be changed and also gives you a better outlook of what you are trying to achieve. Summative assessment is just an endpoint evaluation that is completed at the end of a professional program which doesn’t allow you to receive any feedback throughout that program. Competence gives you the ability to suffice the performance of a particular practice or job through learning and exposure to different training.